6 Ideas to Help Employees Through Uncertainty

The responsibilities of being a leader and manager are increasing right now. Your whole team is navigating unprecedented waters. Working remotely is hard. Life, from grocery shopping to home schooling brings new stresses that can continue compound.

Yet life goes on and there’s still work to be done. As a leader, how do you best support your team while still moving workflow forward positively? Here are six ideas for leaders to help their teams work through an emotional time to develop resilience. Down the road, you will be a stronger team for it

1. Be sure all virtual social gatherings are optional.

Spontaneous after-work drinks and office catch-up chats are no longer possible. To maintain team camaraderie, planning a casual Zoom “Happy Hour” has been the norm. Not a bad idea but be sure to make it optional for all team members. Distractors are different for everyone and that can make it difficult to participate. Or your employees might need a break from Zoom. Do not assume everyone in the group has the headspace, or time, for another informal Zoom call.

2. Provide flexibility during the workday and offer time off.

The sudden change to remote working and sheltering in place has interrupted day-to-day routines. We are all still adjusting. Offer employees time during the work week to help smooth this transition. Maybe switch to half day Fridays? This would give employees time to figure out a new routine, contact family or free their minds by taking a few hours to relax. Another thought would be to not allow anyone to schedule Friday afternoon meetings.

Your time off approach will depend on your organization’s policies. It is likely you may not be able to issue a new policy for your direct reports to take a half day off. But you can use your oneon-one appointments with your employees to appreciate what is going on in their lives. Adjust to help them manage. Even something as little as letting them take time during a workday to take an essential shopping trip will be welcomed.

3. Reduce meetings by 5-10 minutes.

Calendars are filling up with back-to-back meetings, so try to effectively schedule in some down time in-between. People need a break, mentally and physically. Shorten half hour meetings to 25 minutes. A 60 minute meeting can become 50 minutes.

This approach might be easier said than done. A lot of meetings have a tendency to run long, so trying to build in down time may not work. The issue may be you, so this could be a good time to get more efficient with how you manage meetings. To begin, reduce the guest list to only to only necessary, select employees, create a clear agenda, and designate a note-taker to record action items.

4. Support calendar blocking.

An alternative to stop meetings from taking over your day is to block out time for yourself. Encourage your staffs to schedule periods of time for in-depth work or free time to catch up on emails. Do so on your own calendar and encourage your team to do the same.

This can be beneficial, as long as you’re blocking out sufficient amounts of time. No more than an hour or two. Your coworkers still need scheduled time with you. If someone sees multiple hours in a row blocked on your calendar several days a week, they most likely will not honor it.

5. Be mindful of your own emotions.

Supporting the emotions of your direct reports can be emotionally draining. You must take care of yourself too. One style of working through this is to contact other directors and leaders. Connecting with colleagues about common challenges can be very cathartic.

You are not driving to work, not picking up dry cleaning, or headed across town for meetings. We all have the luxury of extra time right, in one way or another. Think about focusing on habits like meditation, getting daily exercise, and sufficient sleep. If time is restricted due to your circumstances, work to find small blocks of time and strategies to improve your well-being. Keeping a journal to record all that you are grateful for takes just five or ten minutes a day and can lead to better sleep patterns and help with positive behavioral changes.

6. Get comfortable with over communicating.

Leaders should over communicate more so than they feel comfortable with. Send more emails with project updates, contact your team more often, create more opportunities for people to connect. No harm no foul when over communicating during a crisis.